30 May ,2013
First US Drone Strike In Pakistan Since Obama’s Drone Speech Kills Seven
By Niles Williamson
On Wednesday, the US launched a drone strike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, killing at least seven people. The strike, the first since Pakistan’s May 11 elections and Obama's speech on drone policy last week, was a clear message that Washington intends to continue its global campaign of drone strikes—violating Pakistan's national sovereignty and summarily murdering Pakistanis
Thanking Bradley Manning
By Kathy Kelly
Two days later his trial will begin, a trial which could sadly result in his imprisonment for a life sentence. June 1st also begins an international week of support and solidarity, aimed at thanking Bradley Manning
The Cold War Redux?
By Michael T. Klare
Are Washington, Moscow, and Beijing Using the Global Arms Trade to Create a New Cold War?
Toward A Generative Economy
By Marjorie Kelly
What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being? This question is being answered in experiments across the globe, from community forests in Mexico to "industrial symbiosis" in Denmark
Supply Shock: Ecological Economics Comes Of Age, Part 2
By Brian Czech
So now in the 21st century we must stand before the mirror and ask: Which of the following ladies or gentlemen will materialize? A long-evolved, tribally rooted, Homo ecologicus, or the self-interested, utility-maximizing, globe-trotting Homo economicus? Which, we might ask, would also deserve the title of Homo sapiens? Clearly we need sapience in a full-world economy
The Natural Limits Of Confronting Our Limits
By Carolyn Baker
The Age of Limits Conference is a microcosm of the collapse-aware community worldwide. Myriad variables apply, but one constant remains: People are hungry for something more than cognitive presentations and Power Points
Improving 'Crop per Drop' Could Strengthen World Food Security
By Countercurrents.org
Improvements in crop water productivity -- the amount of food produced per unit of water consumed -- have the potential to improve both food security and water sustainability in many parts of the world, according to a study published online in Environmental Research Letters
Israel To Build 1,000 New Homes In East Jerusalem, 20 Palestinian Cars Attacked
By Countercurrents.org
In annexed east Jerusalem, Israel is preparing to build more than 1,000 new settler homes. At the same time, Israeli police and witnesses said suspected Jewish extremists carried out a string of attacks against about 20 Palestinian cars in east Jerusalem and the West Bank
No More Tunnels Please: Gaza Held Hostage To Egypt’s Turmoil
By Ramzy Baroud
Yes, Egypt has every right to secure its border, but certainly not at the expense of a besieged people who are tired of being subjected to ‘collective punishment’ or being used as political fodder. Additionally, they are most certainly tired of digging tunnels to survive
Bolivia: Nationalisation Puts Wealth In Hands Of The People
By Federico Fuentes
Bolivia is demonstrating to the world why nationalising natural resources is a crucial first step for any government seeking to put people and the environment before profits
Farcical SMS Ban In Kashmir
By Ravi Nitesh
People of J&K are facing a strange restriction on sending SMSes (short message services) on prepaid cell phones. This ban by the government on ‘security reasons’ on the pretext that that all common cellphone users of this region may become a threat to security
29 May ,2013
Syria Escalation Poses Growing Risk Of Regional War
By Bill Van Auken
In the wake of the European Union’s vote late Monday to lift a ban on directly arming Western-backed “rebels,” there is a mounting danger of wider war. Growing military tensions in the region are likewise threatening to turn a Syrian peace conference, ostensibly backed by both Washington and Moscow, into a dead letter. Dubbed “Geneva II,” the conference is tentatively set to convene in mid-June
GMO And The March Of Millions
By Countercurrents.org
More than two million people, marched a few days ago against Monsanto, the agro-monster, in more than 400 cities in 52 countries
The Monsanto Revolution
By Timothy V. Gatto
The protests against the Monsanto Protection Act were not covered by the corporately run news media in the United States. This treacherous act itself has not been discussed by the majority of people and the information about what it really means to us is being hidden by those charged to provide this information
Move Over, God, The Biotech Companies Are Here
By Vandana Shiva
GMO today means “god move over”. But genetic engineering in not a game of Lego in which genes can be moved around without any impact on the organism or the environment. It is time to put nature and people back in the technology narrative. It is time to see technology as a tool, and not an end that defines a new fundamentalist religion through which corporations become the new gods
Food Justice: Monsanto, Factory Farming, And Beyond
By Mickey Z.
The 2008 Friends of the Earth report, "Who Benefits From GM Crops," sums it up well: "The majority of GM crops are not destined for hungry people in developing countries, but are used to feed animals, generate biofuels, and produce highly processed food products -- mainly for consumption in rich countries. GM crops have not increased food security for the world's poor. None of the GM crops on the market are modified for increased yield potential and research continues to focus on new pesticide-promoting varieties that tolerate application of one or more herbicides."
NDTV Dump Monsanto!
Petition Campaign
Monsanto is trying to clean up their dirty image by sponsoring NDTV in their new TV series 'Improving lives'
The Reproduction Of Labor Power In The Global Economy
And The Unfinished Feminist Revolution
By Silvia Federici
In this essay, originally written in 2008, Silvia Federici lays out her feminist anti-capitalist vision, and how it extends beyond traditional Marxism. This piece is comprehensive – long but far-reaching. At times seeing the truth requires seeing in the dark – acknowledging the true horrors of the world as it currently is manifest
Beware Of Robert Reich's Latest Op-Ed
By John Spritzler
Robert Reich wants to be known as a good economist who stands up against evil Big Money capitalists. Thus he titles his latest Op-Ed, "Beware Capitalist Tools." But people who stand up against Big Money capitalists do not find themselves, as did Robert Reich, appointed to be Secretary of Labor in the United States, where Big Money capitalists control the government and all of the other major institutions of society
Radical Remaking Of The Economy Is Taking Root
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
It is time for the economy to work for the people, not the elites; it is time for economic democracy
28 May ,2013
EU Votes For Arms To Syria
By Franklin Lamb
Under withering pressure from Washington and the UK, the European Union met this week to decide whether to increase the pressure on the Syrian public by repealing the March 2011 arms embargo that was intended to prohibit arms shipments to Syria and whether or not to continue economic sanctions against the Syrian public. Yesterday, it decided to open the flood gate of arms flow into Syria and to keep the civilian targeting economic sanctions in place
How Obama and Al-Qaeda Became Syrian Bedfellows
By Shamus Cooke
For a president that is executing Bush's "war on terror" against Al-Qaeda and "it's affiliates,” it seems odd that President Obama has targeted the secular Syrian government for "regime change.” Equally odd is that Obama's strongest military ally on the ground in Syria- the best equipped and effective fighting force against the Syrian Government — is Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has affiliated itself with al-Qaeda, and aims to turn Syria into an extremist Islamic state that enforces a fundamentalist version of Sharia law
Golden Age or Peak Civilization?
By John Scales Avery
The 21st century will be a time of crisis for human civilization. We are facing an environmental megacatastrophe, financial meltdown, and the threat of nuclear war. Politicians seem unable or unwilling to address these problems, becuse they are influenced by powerful lobbies. It is up to individual citizens to force their governments to take action, and if they will not do so, to work for a change of governments
Scientists Narrow Global Warming Range
By Countercurrents.org
Australian scientists have narrowed the predicted range of global warming through groundbreaking new research. The scientists have generated more reliable projections of global warming estimates at 2100. A study-findings, presented in a paper, said exceeding 6 degrees warming was now unlikely while exceeding 2 degrees is very likely for business-as-usual emissions
Advice From An Afghan Mother And Activist: “Resist These Dark Times”
By Kathy Kelly
Fahima's spirit of youthful rebellion clearly hasn't been snuffed out by age or experience. Her practical compassion is like a compass for all of us who learn about her work
The Eternal War?
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Still, remember back in 2001 when, in an unscripted moment, President Bush described the war barely begun as a “crusade”? That was just a slip of the tongue, right? If not, we just might end up calling this one the Eternal War
From Iraq, A Tragic Reminder To Prosecute The War Criminals
By John Pilger
For Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, sending innocent British citizens to Guantanamo was "the best way to meet our counter terrorism objective". These crimes, their iniquity on a par with Woolwich, await prosecution. But who will demand it? In the kabuki theatre of Westminster politics, the faraway violence of "our values" is of no interest. Do the rest of us also turn our backs?
Tanzania Told To Severe Link With Monsanto
By Nizar Visram
Normally Tanzanian lawmakers would ‘prove’ their radicalism by blasting rival parties, state authorities, public corporations or ministers for shoddy work done or millions that go missing. Hardly do they take a swipe at a multinational corporation, much less if it is an American one. Yet that is what happened recently when Hon Halima Mdee (Chadema) called upon the government to severe its relations with the international seed company Monsanto, which is a major stakeholder in the country’s campaign for green revolution
A Misunderstanding About "Patriarchy"
By John Spritzler
Oppressive ruling class in the United States uses divide and rule to strengthen its power over and oppression of both ordinary men and women, and specifically uses, among other forms of divide and rule, a form called "misandry," which pits men and women against each other by persuading women that "men--all men" are their enemy, the cause of all the injustices they experience
Eleven Things India Must Change In Kashmir
By Justin Podur
I am not going to suggest things that many states are incapable of doing anywhere, like ending corruption or following its own laws consistently. I am just going to suggest things that are allowed and routine in other states. So here are eleven things that India should do to protect people's rights in Kashmir
Could Voters Do With A “None Of The Above” Option?
By N. Jayaram
Until the advent of electronic balloting in India, those who did not want to vote for any candidate either spoiled the ballot paper or left it blank. But with the introduction of voting machines, that option of invalidating one's vote or registering dissent has been foreclosed. The Election Commission makes no provision for it
Letter From The Women And Children Of Idinthakarai, Koodankulam
By The Women and Children of Idinthakarai
Today, 26th May 2013 marks 650 days since we the people of Idinthakarai have made this Samara pandal in the courtyard of the 150 year old Lourde Mother Church our home. We have witnessed many many events and seen so many people from India and other parts of the world by being here
Sri Lanka: A Present Participle
By Chandi Sinnathurai
It is four-years since the Government Forces annihilated the Tamil Tigers. The absence of war is welcomed by all communities. The President Rajapaksha’s pledges and promises to the Tamils, however has proved to be a tempting tall story. The internally Displaced people (IDPs) are sadly still suffering without a proper roof over their heads. War-ravaged children, mostly orphans and widows, including young adults tormented by the flashback of the war are neglected victims
AFSPA A Threat To Life
By Ravi Nitesh & Devika Mittal
Request NHRC to act in the cases of human rights' violation in North-East and Jammu & Kashmir
Repression Of Maruti Suzuki Workers Continues
By Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
Our spirit of struggle has been further tempered in the hearth of repression. We are resolute to continue our struggle against the Maruti Suzuki management and Haryana government’s collusion with it, even as the Haryana police administration came down with brutal force to break our 57-day long dharna in Kaithal on 18-19th May and put 111 of us behind bars
27 May ,2013
Syrian War Spreads To Lebanon
By Thomas Gaist
Escalating fighting in Lebanon along with growing efforts by the US and the European powers to arm the Syrian rebels are raising the risk of a region-wide war. Lebanon, having served as a corridor for arms shipments to US-backed Sunni opposition forces inside Syria, is itself becoming a war theater. Fighting raged last week between Alawites aligned with Bashar al-Assad and Sunni oppositionists in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 23 and wounding 170. As of Sunday night, the Lebanese Daily Star reported that clashes were set to continue today, for the eighth straight day
Taliban Mounts “Spring Offensive” In Afghanistan
By Deepal Jayasekera
A wave of attacks in Afghanistan last Friday and over the weekend followed the Taliban’s announcement last month that it was preparing a “spring offensive.” These bombings have demonstrated the weakness of the Afghan regime, against which Taliban forces can launch attacks at will
At The Heart Of An Occupation
By Charles Eisenstein
When I came to Zuccotti, I felt like I was seeing a small and partial glimpse of something that’s in the future. You know how an alcoholic has moments of clarity on the way down? Our society is like that. This was like a little moment of clarity. There was definitely a glimpse of what is possible for human beings
For A Future that Won’t Destroy Life On Earth,
Look To The Global Indigenous Uprising
By Kristin Moe
Idle No More is the latest incarnation of an age-old movement for life that doesn't depend on infinite extraction and growth. Now, armed with Twitter and Facebook, once-isolated groups from Canada to South America are exchanging resources and support like never before
Latin America's Social Movements Map Solidarity With ALBA Alliance
By Federico Fuentes
This region also remains the only one where an alternative to neoliberal capitalism has emerged. Pushing this alternative is the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA). Spearheaded by the radical governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, it has eight member states, but seeks to relate to people's movements, not just governments
The Stasis Of The Muslim Mind
By Maryam Sakeenah
Religious discourse that fails to take account of the modern mind and appeal to the youth with their voracity for rational argument cannot be shoved down people's throats. It is condemned to survive as no more than a fringe-cult
Hindutva In Karnataka: Experiments In Terror
By Subhash Gatade
As things stand today Huballi (Hubli's new name, the name Hubballi literally means "Hu" - flower and "Balli" - creeper in Kannada.) seems to have metamorphosed into 'birthplace' of Hindutva terror in Karnataka and a strong link in the emerging pan Indian network of Hindutva terror
Kashmir Dispute And The History
By Dr. Abdul Ahad
The Kashmir dispute is a child born out of an aberrant and unnatural wedlock facilitated by a local who acted as a go-between to try and work out an agenda at a critical juncture when the horrors of death and destruction of the most bloody of civil wars of contemporary history were still haunting the people of the Sub-continent. This Uncared Child of the Incomplete Partition was subsequently adopted by the UN
26 May ,2013
US And Allies Step Up War Preparations Against Syria, Lebanon, Iran
By Chris Marsden
The United States and its allies continue to escalate their military aggression against Syria, behind the smokescreen of a proposed international peace conference scheduled for June in Geneva
Maoist Violence A Threat To Secular Democratic Forces In India
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The Maoist threat and violence will only strengthen the militarized minds in the bureaucracy who will make a war cry. It will strengthen the right wing agenda of political parties and the end result would be that situation would turn more difficult for all those whose rights are violated particularly the most marginalized sections of our society whether it is Dalits or Aadivasis or Muslims and other backward communities
When A Celebrity Gandhian Mourns A Mass Murderer!
By Samar
Who can have a problem with someone remembering a dear friend, brutally killed by enemies who could come in any form from that of armed to teeth state to much less armed insurgents? No one can, one must think. Killings, more so the brutal and mindless ones should always be despised as they dehumanise everyone, the killer, the victims and the witnesses. But what if the one killed was a mass murderer, the founder of an armed militia illegalised and disbanded by nothing less than the Supreme Court of the country?That’s exactly what I woke up to this morning, to Himanshu Kumar, a self-appointed Gandhian having monopolised the rights of being the voice of hapless adivasis of Bastar, paying his heartfelt condolences to Mahendra Karma, the architect of Salwa Judum
Fresh Water Shortages For Global Majority 'Within Two Generations', Scientists Warn
By Countercurrents.org
The majority of the 9 billion people on Earth will live with severe pressure on fresh water within the space of two generations as climate change, pollution and over-use of resources take their toll
The Legacy Of Rachel Carson
By Stephen Kress
May 27 is Rachel Carson's birthday. Her legacy is very much alive here on Hog Island, Maine, where I spend my summers working to restore seabird populations that were once decimated. Carson's words are needed today as we confront the effects of climate change on our oceans
Get Apocalyptic: Why Radical Is The New Normal
By Robert Jensen
Feeling anxious about life in a broken economy on a strained planet? Turn despair into action
Supply Shock: Ecological Economics Comes of Age, Part 1
By Brian Czech
The ecological critique of mainstream economics is so strong and compelling that a large and growing academic movement has formed around it. This movement is called “ecological economics,” no less, and is more or less embodied in the International Society for Ecological Economics, or ISEE
America 's Time Capsule: How Animosity And Wickedness Degenerates Its Future
By Mahboob A. Khawaja
The continued American led bogus War on Terrorism has wide ranging impacts on the American political and intellectual psyche. Americans are in the frontline of terrorizing the global mankind, not searching for strategic rethinking - what went wrong with one of the most cultured and intellectually enriched nations of the world. President Obama in his recent speech offered nothing new to the present and futuristic generations of America to build a peaceful relationship with the rest of the humanity
Good Americans Mourn First The Millions America Slaughtered, Then Mourn US Soldiers
By Jay Janson
This veteran is waiting for the year in which the Veterans For Peace, in its Memorial Day Press Release, states that Veterans mourn first, the lives America took in poor countries, both the civilian men, women and children and the patriots that fought our illegal and criminal invasions since 1945
Blood On The Streets Of London: Who Will Protect Us From The Real Extremists?
By Colin Todhunter
We must stick to the story about the proper way of preventing terror at home is by stopping the indoctrination or brain washing of young Muslims. Do not focus too much (if at all) on the Western-fueled barbarity and hacked to death bodies on blood stained streets in far away lands. Out of sight, out of mind, thanks largely to the media. Just who is being indoctrinated here? And who is to protect us from the real extremism?
Memorial Day Mourning
By Rosemarie Jackowski
It is Memorial Day again. Some will celebrate. Some will march in parades. Some will rally around the flag. Some will go shopping. Some will mourn. I am among the mourners
If Only Glenn Greenwald Would Learn to Say "They" Instead of "We"
By John Spritzler
It would mean referring to the rulers of the United States, for example, as "they" not "we." This is something that Greenwald unfortunately fails to do. Instead, Greenwald uses "we" and "our" to refer to criminals like Obama
A Dispatch From The Toughest Slums on Earth
By Andre Vltchek
As the sun began setting down, below there, in the middle of the slum, the first fires started burning and the first gunshots began resonating. Another battle was beginning, the battle between the victims and the other victims. The poor have been obediently dying, as the Global regime has been consolidating its control over the planet
Malaysia On Syria In The UN
By Chandra Muzaffar
It is disappointing that Malaysia chose to support the UN General Assembly resolution on Syria on 15 May 2013. Even if we did not want to vote against it --- which is what 12 governments did, including Russia, China, Iran and Cuba --- we could have at least abstained, together with countries such as Indonesia, India, South Africa, Brazil and 55 other sovereign states
NAPM Condemns The Ambush By Maoists In Bastar
By National Alliance of People’s Movements
Politics of Violence and Counter Violence will only Maim Adivasis, Increased Militarisation in the Region would be no Solution
Condemn Massacre Of Leaders And Workers Of The Congress Party
By Concerned Citizens
The latest Maoist action will only invite even more state repression in the area. The CPI(Maoist) leadership, which authorized the attack, seem to have cynically calculated that such increased repression will swell their numbers and help their movement grow. If that is the case then their politics is as evil as those they claim to be fighting against and should be shunned by all those who stand for democratic norms in political struggles for peace with justice
CPI(ML) Condemns The 25th May Attack Of Maoists On Congress Rally
By KN Ramachandran
The 25 th May attack on the “Parivartan Rally” of Congress in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh by Maoists leading to killing and injuring of many including Congress leader Mahendra Karma and severe injury to V.C. Shukla, is a suicidal act which will only lead to further intensification of state terror against the adivasi masses
25 May ,2013
March Against Monsanto
By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers
We advocate a two-path approach - protest what you do not like and build what you want. That means that while we encourage community-supported agriculture, organic and local gardening, preparing your own non-processed foods and working to change laws, we also urge protest. This May 25, nearly 300 protests are being held all over the world against Monsanto in the March Against Monsanto organized by Occupy Monsanto. Join these protests.
Obama Offers Tortured Defense Of Targeted Killings
By Joseph Kishore
In his speech yesterday at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, US President Barack Obama offered a tortured defense of extra-judicial assassinations, for the first time publicly acknowledging the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen, in September 2011
Why I Spoke Out At Obama's Foreign Policy Speech
By Medea Benjamin
Speaking out isn't rude... Terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping 86 prisoners in Guantanamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude."
No More Excuses
By Witness Against Torture
Anti-Guantanamo Activists Demand that President Obama Make Good on Promise to Restart Transfers and Close Guantanamo; Vow to Keep Pressure on President
Support A Process Of Dialogue And Reconciliation In Syria
By Mairead Maguire
Report and Appeal to the International community to support a process of dialogue and reconciliation in Syria between its people and Syrian government and reject outside intervention and war
Hezbollah And The Syrian Pit
By Franklin Lamb
Why Washington and Tel Aviv Want Hezbollah to Keep Fighting in al-Qusayr….
The World of Our Children
By Jack A. Smith
I’m not just writing about the nuclear weapons, drone warfare, torture memos, global hunger, or the plethora of needless inequality and injustice that exists through the world. There’s also the impending catastrophe of global warming — something few of us worried about a generation ago, but now the very health and welfare of new generations is at stake
Old Masters And The Masters Of War: Guernica – Gaza
By Vacy Vlazna
I believe the soul and sumud of Gaza is embedded in Al Hawajri’s exhibition and genius. This collection of Al Hawajri’s art is not for adornment, it is the art of strong love and responsibility for justice, for an abandoned people, for Palestine
Why They're Rioting In Sweden
By John Spritzler
Now we can see what "good capitalism" turns into in the absence of a democratic revolution to abolish capitalism and class inequality. It turns into what we can see Sweden turning into before our very eyes. It's time to start Thinking about Revolution
An Appeal To Sunni And Shia Muslims From Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
And Sayyid Muhammad Khatami
For the first time in modern Muslim history, two prominent personalities, one a Sunni and the other a Shia, have come together to appeal to Sunni and Shia Muslims to stop the bloodshed and the killings that have blighted their relations for a long while. Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Muhammad Khatami, the former President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, made the plea in Putrajaya, the administrative capital Malaysia, on the 22nd of May 2013. Khatami was represented by his special adviser, Mr. Ali Khoshroo
Love Denied: The Psychology Of Materialism, Violence And War
By Robert J. Burrowes
We need to recognize that several generations of people who were extremely badly emotionally damaged created the world as it is and that their successors now maintain the political, economic and social structures that allow ruthless exploitation of the rest of us and the Earth itself. We also need to recognize that the Earth's ecological limits are now being breached
Mount Everest's Glaciers Are Retreating At Increasing Rate
By Countercurrents.org
Glaciers on or around Mount Everest have shrunk by 13% in the last 50 years with the snow line 180 meters higher than it was 50 years ago. The glaciers are disappearing faster every year
War, Militarisation And Everyday Life
By Anayika Chopra
The present paper will make an attempt to explore how militarization helps is shaping everyday practices and ways of living by taking the examples of two specific South Asian Cases. The paper will also shed light on how militarization plays an important role in transforming the geographical and social landscape, gender and kinship relations
Rethinking Development In Pakistan
By Q. Isa Daudpota
Trickle-down economics invariably fails in poor countries. For long-lasting progress, development policies that are bottom-up, those that ‘put the last first’, often succeed. Ideas supportive of this thesis are presented in the post-election Pakistani context
Brutal Killing Of 8 Adivasis: Open Letter To The President Of India
By Jharkhand Human Rights Movement
Requesting for a high level judicial inquiry, legal action and fixing accountability on the case of brutal killing of 8 Adivasis by the Security forces in an alleged encounter took at Aarespeta village of Bijapur district in Chhatisgarh
23 May ,2013
Behind Syria Peace Talks Proposal, US Prepares Regional War
By Bill Van Auken
While ostensibly touring the Middle East to discuss a joint US-Russian proposal for peace talks between the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and Western-backed “rebels,” Secretary of State John Kerry met with US allies to prepare for region-wide war
Syria As A Game-Changer: US Political Impotence In The Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud
In an article published May 15, 2013, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, “Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria.” Those limitations are palpable in both language and action. A political and military vacuum created by past US failures and forced retreats after the Iraq war made it possible for countries like Russia to reemerge on the scene as an effective player
How Lebanon’s Palestinians Are Being Pulled Into Syrian War
By Franklin Lamb
In Syria, the largest Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk (approximately 125,000 residents), and the second largest of the 14 camps, Khan al-Sheeh (approximately 45,000 before the crisis which has swelled its population by 26,000 mainly from Yarmouk camp) have become virtual war zones with large sections of the camps being overrun by gunmen fighting in support of the “Free Syrian ‘Army.” All but two of the camps in Syria have been infiltrated by opposition forces and consequently have been targeted by government forces seeking to destroy the rebels
Deaths Of The “No-State” Palestinians Are Proportional To Life Of The Two State Solution
By Dan Lieberman
Because its continued mention drowns out discussion on other relevant resolutions, the two-state solution will not disappear until after the Palestinian community fades into history
Will The International Energy Agency's Oil Forecast Be Wrong Again?
By Kurt Cobb
The famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr once humorously observed, "Predictions are very difficult, especially about the future." And so, as the world considers yet another rosy oil supply forecast, this time from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), it is worth reviewing the agency's record
A Global Goal On Gender Equality, Women’s Rights And Women’s Empowerment
By Lakshmi Puri
By failing to address the structural causes of discrimination and violence against women and girls, progress towards equality has been stalled, writes Puri
A Ruling Class vs. Revolutionary Response To Prostitution
By John Spritzler
In communities where people made sex with strangers on demand illegal it would be illegal. We may disagree about which kind of community we'd like to live in, but I hope we agree we wouldn't want to live in one in which, like today, the powers-that-be tell certain people, "You must provide sex for strangers on demand or else you will starve."
Traditional Cultures Can Show Developed World How To Preserve Food
By Marianne de Nazareth
In industrialized regions, almost half of the total food squandered, around 300 million tonnes annually, occurs because producers, retailers and consumers discard food that is still fit for consumption,more than the net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa and enough to feed the world’s hungry. These figures demonstrate just how much room there is for individual consumers to take the lead from their forebears and change the way they buy, store and consume food
Remembering Asghar Ali Engineer: Goodbye Asgharsaab
By Subhash Gatade
Newspapers informed us that Asgharsaab was interned not in the cemetery of the Bohras but in that of the Sunni Muslims. It was just another proof that the undeclared social boycott of a great fighter for communal harmony and a renowned scholar of Islam continued even after his death
Abusing Prisoners Decreases Public Safety
By Angola 3 News
An interview with author and former prisoner Shawn Griffith
Inclusive Education: The Need Of The Hour
By Anayika Chopra
This article was written by Anayika Chopra as part of her Sociology Master's thesis titled "Inclusion of Autistic Children in Mainstream Education: Identifying Issues, Exploring Possibilities". The analyses of the article is based on part of the research conducted in Delhi
22 May ,2013
Israel, US Threatens War With Syria As Sectarian Fighting Spreads Across Region
By Alex Lantier
Israeli and Syrian forces exchanged fire across the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights yesterday, amid rising US and Israeli threats of intervention in the US-led sectarian proxy war in Syria, which is rapidly spreading throughout the region
In Bahrain, An Uprising Unabated
By Husain Abdulla
More than two years after peaceful demonstrators took to the streets to demand reforms, Bahrain’s uprising has not abated. Activists and opposition groups continue to demand the basic human rights and political reforms promised to them by their government. Rather than meet the opposition’s calls for reform, the government of Bahrain has responded by subjecting citizens to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and abuse
NASA Scientists On 400 ppm CO2
By Countercurrents.org
The global concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere -- the primary driver of recent climate change -- has reached 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in recorded history, according to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii . The following scientists at NASA were asked what passing 400 ppm means to them:
Angelina Jolie, Corporate Science, And “Prevention”
By Mickey Z
While I support Angelina Jolie’s right to do what she pleases with her body, I can’t help but imagine how incredibly valuable it could’ve been if someone as high-profile as she were not raising “public awareness of the genetic testing she used, as well as concerns about insurance coverage for this kind of testing.” Imagine if she instead called a press conference to raise public awareness of the role corporate power plays in creating epidemics of preventable diseases
So Many Of My Friends Coming Down With Cancer
By Frosty Wooldridge
In the past 10 months, nine of my friends contracted cancer in many of its various forms: kidney, stomach, breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, Hodgkin’s, liver, ovarian and skin cancers. All of them struggle for their lives as you read this column
37 Ways Of Tackling Australian Educational Apartheid And Social Inequity
By Dr Gideon Polya
Before one dollar is spent on Gonski-style education "reforms", there are many urgent educational procedural reforms that should be introduced that will either not actually cost anything or cost very little but will dramatically address Educational Apartheid, functional illiteracy and functional innumeracy. Below is a list of 37 zero- or low-cost things that can and should be done now to radically improve pre-tertiary education in Australia
The Confused Pashtun
By Iqbal Ahmed Khan
Imran Khan’s Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party is taking over the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) bordering Afghanistan. At this point it is necessary to dispel a couple of myths that already seem to have accompanied the victory. But such an exercise must necessarily begin with an explanation of the reasons for the defeat of the former provincial ruling party, the Pashtun nationalist, Awami National Party (ANP). What this article will argue is that on the one hand, the PTI is filling in a vacuum left behind by a collapsing Pashtun nationalism. And on the other, it will attempt to get rid of a few misconceptions about the PTI’s victory and the Taliban that will arise as a result of the PTI’s gains in KPK
The Koodankulam Mystery : Indian Officials’ Exodus
By People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy
It is beyond any doubt that there has been massive theft, financial irregularities, corruption and wastefulness in the Koodankulam nuclear power project (KKNPP). In this day and age of scientific corruption, asking the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) for the income and assets details of some of the senior leaders of the Indian nuclear establishment would be useless as they would vehemently defend themselves with the help of their political patrons and they all would protect each other. We would rather point out the intriguing change of guard that took place at Koodankulam and in the Indian nuclear establishment last year and request you to draw your own conclusions
21 May ,2013
Bangladeshi Police Attack Garment Workers’ Protest
By K. Ratnayake
Police fired rubber bullets on tens of thousands of protesting Bangladeshi garment workers in the Ashulia industrial belt near Dhaka yesterday, injuring at least fifty. Workers were protesting to demand higher wages and safe working conditions. They were also demanding the death penalty for the owner of the Rana Plaza clothing factory that collapsed on April 24, killing 1,127 garment workers, according to official figures
Let Your Life Be A Friction To Stop The Machine
Hope From The Margins
By Gustavo Esteva
These notes offer a quick glance to ways, in the south of Mexico, in which people are regenerating the society from the bottom up. It is a new kind of revolution without leaders or vanguards, which goes beyond development and globalization. It is about displacing the economy from the center of social life, reclaiming a communal way of being, encouraging radical pluralism, and advancing towards real democracy
What Kind Of Example Is Canada Setting?
By Brent Blackwelder
Many have tried to influence Harper to do what’s best for the environment and the economy over the long run. If the saying is true that, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” then maybe it’s time to put Harper out to political pasture. Although with the policies he’s been supporting, he might have a tough time finding drinkable water in that pasture
Standing Up To The ‘Land Grabbing' Foresters In Mozambique
By Hazel Healy
Forestry companies want to carve up Mozambique 's northern highlands. Peasants and their allies are working to hold them accountable. Following is an investigation
On the Road To Damascus
By Antonio C. S Rosa
I participated, May 1-11, 2013 in the Mussalaha International Peace Delegation to Lebanon-Syria alongside fellow TRANSCEND member Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, from Ireland , and 15 others from eight countries. Keenly aware of my responsibility, especially to my newly made Syrian and Lebanese friends left behind, I shall try to report, describe, make sense of what I saw, heard and experienced; also offer views and insights based on interviews. However, this report will take more than one article
Tales In A Kabul Restaurant
By Kathy Kelly
Last night, at a restaurant in Kabul, I and two friends from the Afghan Peace Volunteers met with five Pashtun men from Afghanistan’s northern and eastern provinces. The men had agreed to tell us about their experiences living in areas affected by regular drone attacks, aerial bombings and night raids. Each of them noted that they also fear Taliban threats and attacks. “What can we do,” they asked, “when both sides are targeting us?”
Chemical Weapons Abuser Deplores Use Of Chemical Weapons
By Jason Hirthler
The administration’s behavior on chemical weapons is morally absurd
Jump Off The Treadmill Of Defeat!
By John Spritzler
Jumping off the treadmill of defeat means building a revolutionary movement--revolutionary in the sense that it has the revolutionary goal of creating a much better kind of society, one in which there are no rich and no poor because everybody who works according to ability
America's Greatest Challenge
By Timothy Gatto
It is our duty as citizen’s to educate those who are currently ignorant in the present situation. There is no free lunch when it comes to this. Either we will rise to the occasion or give away our freedom and prosperity to those who will take it from us. This is the challenge we as Americans face
Another Kenyan Stolen Election
By Thomas C. Mountain
That the fix was in was confirmed when the Godfather himself, son of a Kenyan, Barack Obama, called Uhuru Kenyatta, indicted for “Crimes Against Humanity” by those minions of Pax Americana, the International Criminal Court, to congratulate him for successfully conducting another Kenyan stolen election
Mountbatten - Jinnah Talks On Kashmir
By Abdul Majid Zargar
In a glittering function held to commemorate the 25th year of existential journey of Daily Greater Kashmir, A. G. Noorani stirred a fresh controversy by blaming Jinnah to ignore a proposal from Mountbatten in November 47 negotiations which would have awarded Kashmir to Pakistan in lieu of its forsaking claim on Junagarh & Hyderabad
20 May ,2013
European Powers Fund Al Qaeda Looting Of Syrian Oil
By Johannes Stern
According to a report yesterday in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the European Union (EU) is directly funding US-backed Sunni Islamist terrorist groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. These groups are looting oil in parts of eastern Syria that they control and then re-selling it to EU countries at rock-bottom prices
Climate Crisis: Disaster Looms
By Countercurrents.org
Citing a new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience The Guardian, reported , global warming would lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heatwaves, and drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration. Alexander Otto, at the University of Oxford, lead author of the research, told the Guardian most of the climate change models used by scientists were "pretty accurate"
The Case For Hope, Continued
By Rebecca Solnit
There are so many pieces of the potential solution to this puzzle, and some of them are for you to put together. Whether they will multiply or ever add up to enough we don’t yet know. We need more: more people, more transformations, more ways to conquer and dismantle the oil companies, more of a vision of what is at stake, more of the great force that is civil society. Will we get it? I don’t know. Neither do you. Anything could happen
Nepal, Climate Change And Brick Factories
By Stephen Bailey
You need a bit of height to appreciate the size of a brick factory. You need to get close to appreciate the human cost. From a hill over Duwakot you can see people labouring in the grey mud beneath the towering chimney. Down in the factory you can see the weather beaten faces, deformed hands, and grueling work in terrible conditions. There are factories like this all over Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, which has become an air pollution disaster zone
Book Review: Dr. Muhammad Qasim–The Victim Of Political Vendetta
By Abdul Majid Zargar
Dr. Qasim Faktoo’s incarceration is one such gory story. His details of long detention are revealed in a recently released book titled Dr. Muhammad Qasim–the victim of political Vendetta
19 May ,2013
Profits vs. Disaster In Arctic Meltdown
By Stephen Leahy
The ARR report is a two-year collaboration between experts in the Nordic countries, Russia , Canada and the United States , and includes indigenous perspectives. It is a cutting edge assessment of how changes in climate, ecosystems, economics, and society interact. The report was prepared for and released at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna , Sweden on last Wednesday. “What is happening in the Arctic has profound implications for every part of the world,” said Sarah Cornell, lead author of the study
Afghanistan War May End By 2024, May Be
By Jack A. Smith
Hamid Karzai has let the Pentagon’s cat out of the bag — to the displeasure of the Obama Administration. The Afghan president revealed inside information about President Obama’s war plans after all U.S. “combat troops” completely withdraw in 17 months at the end of 2014. As was known in recent years, the Obama Administration actually plans to keep troops in Afghanistan after the “withdrawal” at least to 2024
Vermont's New Choice For Death With Dignity
By Mary Shaw
On May 13, the Vermont state legislature passed a bill that legalizes physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients whose suffering has become unbearable but who are capable of making an informed consent on their own behalf. Governor Peter Shumlin has indicated that he will sign the bill into law
IF Our Re-elected Prez Is WarCriminal, What Are We? King Would Have Asked!
By Jay Janson
Cornel West, most outspoken anti-imperialist and defender of Black and minority civil rights since Martin Luther King now says Obama is a war criminal, a black puppet of corporate plutocrats, head of the US killing machine. Will West tell us that King said America, Americans, are responsible for the atrocity wars, being capable of making them unacceptable and inoperable through non-participation and conscientious objection?
Polluted Rivers Worry The Majhi Community
By Sangeetha Rajeesh
Fish might form just a minor intake in the overall diet; nonetheless, it is a very important source of protein for a community living in poverty. But, polluted rivers, destructive fishing practices and overfishing has resulted in declining fish stocks posing a threat to the very survival of the Majhi
Lest We Forget Mubina Ghani
By Abdul Majid Zargar
Thousands of rapes have been committed by security forces in Kashmir since 1990 and one such rape of a young bride, Mubina Ghani of Muhripora, District Islamabad, Kashmir is and will be remembered for long because it changed the whole tradition of celebrating the marriages and transporting “Barats”during night time
Corruption And Congress
By Abdul Majid Zargar
With every passing day, the name congress is becoming synonymous with word corruption . The latest one-coal gate scam comes close on the heels of Commonwealth Games scam, 2G scam, Helicopter scam. It appears that Corruption in India has acquired wings not wheels
Asghar Ali Engineer - His Life Was Gentle; And The Elements…
By Syed Al Mujataba
Asghar Ali Engineer was not simply an armed chaired theoretician but also a grassroots worker who actually saw the developments on the ground and made his observations and comments. This makes his position much above the ranks and files of the scholars who have made their own distinct contributions
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer: A Tribute ToThe Departed Soul
By Asad Bin Saif
With his death the country and the community has lost a great visionary who visualized the future of the country and had articulated those vision through his writings and activism. His faith on humanity and integrity of purpose remained ever alive and pursued it with abiding zeal in his entire life
86 Million Pakistani Voters Turn Down Extremists
By Sarfraz Ali
Pakistan's 2013 elections have spelled doom for all banned outfits as more than its 62 election candidates who vied for 70 seats failed to clinch even a single one out of total 849 seats of national and provincial assembly constituencies in Pakistan
18 May ,2013
UN General Assembly Vote Reflects Shift In Syrian Public Opinion
By Franklin Lamb
After nearly 27 months of turmoil, the public opinion pendulum is markedly shifting back in support of the current regime. One international political result was registered at the United Nations this past week when a US-Qatari-Saudi drafted General Assembly Resolution that was designed to increase pressure on the Assad government stumbled badly and fell far short of what the Saudi Ambassador to the UN and other US allies predicted would be an overwhelming vote in favor
Guatemala's Ríos Montt Genocide Conviction
Omen For US Presidents And Their Hired Assassins
By Jay Janson
Presiding Judge, "he knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out." US President Ronald Reagan also had the power, greater power, to stop the massacres being perpetrated by dictator General and President Ríos Montt. Instead visited him in Guatemala City and praised Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment. Who was more guilty?
Crime and Punishment : Torturers Face Trial
By Farooque Chowdhury
A tyrant or a torturer facing trial was unimaginable in the 1950s and ‘60s and ‘70s. But trials of tyrants are not strange now. Efrain Rios Montt, a former Guatemalan general, has been found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. The 86-year-old's serving term of 80 years in prison has already begun
Himalayas Among The Biggest Ice Losers
By Countercurrents.org
While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder
Keep The Arctic Cold
By Subhankar Banerjee
A letter from Subhankar Banerjee
Inspiring And Courageous: Popular Resistance Percolates Throughout The Land
By Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers
Every week we are inspired by the many people throughout the country who are doing excellent work to challenge the power structure and put forward a new path for the country. The popular resistance to plutocracy, concentrated wealth and corporatism is decentralized, creative and growing
Postcard From The End Of America : Scranton
By Linh Dinh
In our media, working class people are endlessly caricatured as ignorant and racist buffoons, so they only have themselves to blame if they're struggling. Too stupid, lazy, drunk, drugged up, spoiled and fat, they deserve to have their jobs taken by illegal immigrants, though of course even American engineers, computer technicians and doctors are deliberately being displaced by foreign imports. Our ruling class has employed this strategy for a very long time
Al Nakba And Canada
By Mazin Al Nahawi
It is a shame that John Baird and his boss Stephen Harper haven't learned yet from Canada's colonial past
Breaking The Rules Of The Gender Game
By Neerja Dasani
The voices of change are gradually getting louder and louder. An inspiring instance of this is the ‘Who Needs Feminism?’ campaign that began at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, but has since caught on in many other places, including some close to home, like Lahore. A student-led initiative, the campaign consists quite simply of a series of photographs of people holding up signs stating their reasons for supporting feminism
Greenpeace Activists Take Solar Power To Delhi Power Minister Haroon Yusuf
By Green Peace India
Delhi’s Power Minister Haroon Yusuf was in for a shock on the morning of May 15 when Greenpeace activists decided to deliver a powerful message to him. To make their point that clean energy can solve Delhi’s energy deficit, they wheeled in a set of solar panels in front of the Minister’s residence and then chained themselves to it
Mainstream Media Acrostic
By Gary Corseri
A poem by Gary Corseri
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer: A Tribute To The Departed Soul
By Asad Bin Saif
With his death the country and the community has lost a great visionary who visualized the future of the country and had articulated those vision through his writings and activism
16 May ,2013
US-Backed Opposition Fighter Cannibalize Syrian Soldier
By Alex Lantier
A gruesome video posted on YouTube shows Khalid al-Hamad, the leader of the opposition Farouq Brigade, desecrating the corpse of a Syrian soldier, cutting out his internal organs and biting into one of them. The video makes clear the barbaric character of the Sunni Islamist militias Washington has mobilized in its proxy war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The video was made to terrorize Syria’s Shiite Alawite community, from which most of the Assad government is drawn, and to encourage donations from the Farouq Brigade’s financial backers in the Persian Gulf oil sheikhdoms
European Parliament Resolution On Guantánamo: Hunger Strike By Prisoners
Full text of the resolution
The Collapse Of Journalism And The Journalism Of Collapse
By Robert Jensen
We have no choice but to deal with the collapse of journalism, but we also should recognize the need for a journalism of collapse. Everyone understands that economic changes are forcing a refashioning of the journalism profession. It's long past time for everyone to pay attention to how multiple, cascading ecological crises should be changing professional journalism's mission in even more dramatic fashion
The Corporate Enclosure Of Seeds Intensifies
By David Bollier
In a sign of how far the forces of enclosure have come, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that re-using seeds that are patented, knowingly or not, amounts to an act of piracy. Of course, re-using seeds has been the tradition in agriculture for millennia, just as re-using songs and text is an essential element of culture
Why I’m Marking Passing 400 ppm By Getting Back On An Aeroplane
By Rob Hopkins
What haunts me every day, and no doubt will for the rest of my days, is what I will reply to my grandchildren when they ask me what I did during the time when climate change could have been brought under some sort of control, when the necessary changes could have been put in place to create a low-carbon, resilient and thriving culture that nurtured healthy human cultures. Was I as effective as I could have been? Did I do everything I could have? Having reflected on this for some time, it feels churlish to decline an opportunity that could potentially have a far greater positive impact than the negative impact of the flight
Climate Crisis Is Man Made, Scientists Nearly Unanimous
By Countercurrents.org
More than 97% of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. A survey analyzed the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature examining 11, 944 climate change related papers by 29,000 scientists from the period of 1991–2011. It found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity
Rich- Poor Gap Widens In Rich Countries, Finds OECD
By Countercurrents.org
The gap between rich and poor widened more in the three years to 2010 than in the previous 12 years, said OECD, the group of industrialized nations. According to an OECD report released on May 15, 2013, the richest 10% of society in the 33 OECD countries received 9.5 times that of the poorest in terms of income, up from nine times in 2007
Israel, Hawking And The Pressing Question Of Boycott
By Ramzy Baroud
It is an event “of cosmic proportions”, said one Palestinian academic, a befitting description regarding Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott an Israeli academic conference slated for next June. It was also a decisive moral call which was communicated on May 8 by Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor
15 May ,2013
100th Day Of Guantanamo Hunger Strike This Friday
By Green Shadow Cabinet , Justice Branch
As the hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay approach their 100th day of refusing to eat this Friday, May 17, we urge President Obama to take specific steps now to release or transfer prisoners and close the prison
Climate Change’s ‘Evil Twin’: Ocean Acidification
By Carol Smith
The primary driver of this acidification is the ocean’s uptake of carbon dioxide. When carbon-rich materials such as coal or oil are burned, some of the CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, slowing its build-up in the atmosphere and the pace of human-induced climate warming, but at the same time increasing seawater acidity. As a result of this process, the average acidity of surface ocean waters worldwide is now about 30 percent higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution, say the experts
Moronic Oxymorons In The Age Of Climate Change
By Rob Dietz
It’s tempting to accept the clever slogans and magical “solutions” that bombard us all the time. After all, it sounds like “clean coal” is just the resource to power “sustainable growth.” You can have your cake and eat it too! But at 400 parts per million, the time for self deception and denial has passed. So has the time for buying moronic oxymorons
Extensive Glacial Retreat In Mount Everest While World Enters Danger Zone
By Countercurrents.org
Mount Everest is shedding its frozen cloak while the historic peak level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will soon become the global annual average as the world enters danger zone in terms of CO2
The Economy Of Wastefulness: The Biology Of The Commons
By Andreas Weber
There is an all-enclosing commons-economy which has been successful for billions of years: the biosphere. Its ecology is the terrestrial household of energy, matter, beings, relationships and meanings which contains any manmade economy and only allows for it to exist. Sunlight, oxygen, drinking water, climate, soil and energy – the products and processes of this household – also nourish the Homo economicus of our time who, despite all his technological and economical progress, still feeds on products of the biosphere
Bangladesh Factory Disaster: Why Garment Factories Turn Into Killing Field?
By Anu Muhammad
The garment industry must be confronted within its global context. After all, when workers are victims of a global, blood-thirsty system where vampires rule the world, a global alliance of resistance is desperately needed
The Reformist As Pacifist: Asghar Ali Engineer’s Islam
By Farzana Versey
Let not the fact that they buried him in the Sunni graveyard, where his Leftist friends are interred, mislead anyone into believing that Asghar Ali Engineer was a Communist. It was a pragmatic wish upon which the decision was taken. He died on May 14. The Dawoodi Bohra community to which he belonged would not have accepted his last remains, much as they did not acknowledge him in life. He was excommunicated. However, he was much more than a nemesis of the Syedna, the spiritual head of the community
Uniting The Nation: Asghar Ali Engineer’s Struggle For Preservation Of Plural Ethos
By Ram Puniyani
Engineer was a student when Jabalpore riots took place. It clearly left a deep mark on him. The imprint of this tragedy got reflected in his social engagement with the issues related to communal violence and communal politics all through. His talks and articles reflect about the impact of Jabalpur violence, its impact on nation and its influence on the conscience keeper of the nation, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. Engineer’s work on the issue of communal violence, communal ideology and communalization of society spans on a vast canvass and will easily fill volumes
A Cracked Pot
By Rev’d Barnabas J Alexander
The Christian gospel has empowered the downtrodden. Sadly, however, the power of the gospel has been impotent to decouple caste and faith. Ambedkar was accurate in his analysis. Indian Christianity is yet to be born again from its caste prejudice
14 May ,2013
Nakba: Then And Now
By Dr Salim Nazzal
These days Palestinians are commemorating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It is a hard time for those who lived the ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948 to recall its tragic events. However, when we talk about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, we do not only refer to the huge ethnic cleansing which took place in 1948 .We also refer to the continuous campaign of land grab, and current occupation and oppression
Uri Avnery's Specious Attack On The One State Solution
By John Spritzler
Uri Avnery may be the most sophisticated defender of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. He defends this ethnic cleansing while posing as a great friend and sympathizer of Palestinians, supposedly proven by his opposition to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and support for a "two state solution."
Racism And Sexual Violence In Indonesia
By Andre Vltchek
For almost 50 years now, the daughters of Indonesia, Chinese and of other races, are walking on very thin ice; a bizarre image for this hot and tropical country. They still seem to be fragile, uncertain and thoroughly unprotected
Bye-Bye Baby Boomers
By Carolyn Baker
A May 2 article in the New York Times “Suicide Rates Rise Sharply In US” informed us that not only have suicide rates increased in the past decade among teens and the elderly, but more surprisingly, they have surged among the baby boomers. Ten days later, an article on the Alternet website asks, “Is Cutthroat Capitalism Pushing A Growing Number Of Baby Boomers To Suicide?” Certainly, we might expect adolescents and the elderly to take their own lives, but why baby boomers—people in the 35-70 age bracket?
Burma: Lest We Don’t See, A Genocide Is In The Making
By Bonojit Hussain
Since the summer of 2012 Burma has seen pogroms, massacres, riots of unprecedented scale against religious minorities, the latest being on the 30th April. Few hundreds have been killed and few hundred thousands have been rendered homeless
Hefazat-e-Jamaat , Nothing Else ! On the Recent Developments in Bangladesh
By Subhash Gatade
Despite all their tantrums - raising the bogey of 'Islam being in danger' through Hefazat-e-Islam and other similar desperate acts, whether the Jamaatis would be ever able to obfuscate their crimes which they committed during B'desh's war of independence? It seems impossible. In fact, as far as their gory past is concerned it would come back to haunt them again and again as the latest judgment by the War Crimes Tribunal demonstrates
Jeremy Scahill; Other Side Of The Barrel Of The Gun
By Nozomi Hayase
Who are these independent journalists who go behind the lines to bring the uncomfortable truth of the moral bankruptcy of war? The depth of Jeremy's integrity reminds us how the foundation of such a profession must be grounded in one's identity as an ordinary citizen who responds to others in recognition of our common humanity. Dirty Wars brings us the voices of those who are innocent victims of America's declared global battlefield. Jeremy Scahill said that journalism needs to speak from the other side of the barrel of the gun. That evening, I saw one of America's finest journalists do just that
Where Can I Save My Money? Please Tell Me, My Lord!
By Nisha Biswas
This is a true story. And like, every true story, this story is of many Kamalas, Suchitras and Kavitas who labor in our homes for pittances. All these Kamalas, Suchitras and Kavitas are born in families that are above Sarkari poverty line, but do not have the skills of Ms Sheela Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi, to live happily in meager income of Rupees six hundred per month. Therefore, they start laboring from an early age in our homes. The age can be as young as five, but surely below eighteen
Allah Baksh: Unsung Hero Of India's Freedom Struggle
By Shamsul Islam
On this May 14, 2013 falls the 70th anniversary of the martyrdom of one of the greatest freedom fighters of India, Allah Baksh. He lived and sacrificed his life for a free and all inclusive India
Indo-Pak Talks: The Fresh Initiative
By Abdul Majid Zargar
And for once Prime Minster Manmohan Singh deserves kudos for taking a bold initiative by inviting Nawaz Sharief, Prime Minster –in-waiting of Pakistan to Visit India at a mutually convenient date. That gesture has been well reciprocated by Nawaz Sharief. In a media interview he said that a new round of talks will be resumed with India on the issue of Kashmir, and that ties with neighboring countries will also be strengthened
Pakistan Elections Do Not Augur Well For President Zardari
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Many surprises sprung by May 11 elections in Pakistan will have grave repercussions for the political spectrum with the Pakistan People's Party confined to Sindh, the Awami National Party facing a split and President Asif Ali Zardari denied a second term in office, says Shaheen Sehbani of The News
13 May ,2013
Nuclear Terror In The Middle East
By Nick Turse
Iranian cities -- owing to geography, climate, building construction, and population densities -- are particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a new study, “Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region
Syria Endgame Approaching Fast
By Shamus Cooke
The tempo of events in Syria has accelerated in recent weeks. The government forces have scored significant battlefield victories over the rebels, and this has provoked a mixture of war provocations and peace offers from the U.S. and its anti-Assad allies
Does The American Jewish Community Really Want
A Large-Scale General War In The Middle East?
By John Scales Avery
A large-scale general war in the Middle East would be a catastrophe for everyone involved. It would be a catastrophe for Syria. Iraq and Iran; a catastrophe for the other Islamic states of the Middle East; a catastrophe for Pakistan and Russia, should they become involved; and a catastrophe for Israel and the United States. In fact, all of the peoples of the world would suffer
Antiwars Belatedly Cry Meaninglessly "Hands Off Syria!"
Never “Nuremberg Trial For Americans!”
By Jay Janson
Antiwar leaders do not call for the prosecution of US homicidal crimes against humanity ALREADY committed in Syria, nor of crimes committed in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Cuba, Lebanon, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Guatemala, Congo, Korea and Greece. Crimes committed without arrest, arraignment, indictment, punishment, imprisonment, or hanging
The Samson Complex: Israel Again Rebuffs Peace With The Arab World
By Jonathan Cook
Washington's reputation as an "honest broker" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in tatters after four years of indulging Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intransigence. The Obama administration desperately needs to resurrect a credible peace process
Lebanon Greets The Special Rapporteur For Palestine, Richard Falk, With An Ear Full
By Franklin Lamb
If Professor Falk was weary as he left Lebanon from all the data, visits, and wrenching experiences he was presented with, it would be understandable. But the humanitarian and scholar he showed no signs of fatigue but rather appeared to be energized by the experience. Given his history as a supporter of resistance to occupation and oppression, Richard Falk's assurances that he will continue his work armed with the above sampling of data offers new hope for Palestinian and Syrian refugees from Syria and to those who support their Right and Responsibility to Return to Palestine
Woman Worker Rescued Alive 17 Days After The Bangladesh Building Collapse
By Countercurrents.org
Reshma, a woman garments worker, has been pulled alive from the ruins of a building that collapsed in Savar, a suburb of Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, 17 days after the disaster
Why We Allow The Destruction Of Our Planet
By David Swanson
People's influence on their governments is much more powerful than we usually imagine. It's weakened primarily by people's failure to do anything. Impotence is a self-fulfilling loop. Those longing for the end of the world are far from alone in imagining that we don't have the power to make the world over ourselves. Nonetheless, among the things we should be doing right now is explaining to our neighbors that Jesus isn't coming back
Robinson Jeffers: America's Neglected-At-Our-Peril Poet-Prophet
By Dr. Gary Steven Corseri
My “bridge over troubled water” is Literature and the Arts. But, these days, with the exception of a few cherished authors and websites, I am apt to get more sustenance from re-reading the Classics—even 20th Century Classics--than from reading the frothy outpourings of identity-poets and lauded, establishmentarian shills. A much-thumbed Vintage Book is one I’ve held dear since my 20s, by a poet I’ve introduced to university students surfeited on too much Frost in high school and too much Yeats and Eliot beyond that
Bill Clinton: The Unimportance Of Being Earnest
By Joseph Grosso
In keeping with its absurd mantra of All the News that’s Fit to Print, on March 25th, 2013 the New York Times decided to dedicate a section of its front page to the declaration that former president Bill Clinton now supports the rights of gay people to be married. This of course being the same Bill Clinton who as president signed the Defense of Marriage Act which defined marriage in federal law as a union between a man and woman only
Vijaya Mehta, NCPA And People’s Culture
By Vidyadhar Date
True, the NCPA plays an important role in our cultural life but the point is all the huge corporate profits and government funds ultimately flow from the labour of ordinary people.Resources can be used more imaginatively by democratising our culture, setting up smaller units in all parts of the country. That would really help promote culture, nurture talent that remains suppressed, unrecognised, unseen
09 May ,2013
1.3 Billion People May Be Exposed To Longer-Term Food Insecurity In 2050
By Countercurrents.org
Up to 1.3 billion people may be exposed to longer-term food insecurity in 2050 in low-income economies (mainly in Africa ), if their economic development doesn't allow them to afford productivity improvements, cropland expansion and/or imports from other countries
Human Population Bomb Blows Up
By Steve Salmony
We are neither acknowledging all of the extant science of the human species nor ‘connecting the dots’ between the skyrocketing global growth of the human population and the cascading evidence of climate destabilization, declining TFRs in many overdeveloped countries notwithstanding. Many too many experts continue to eschew ecological science of human population dynamics
Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
By Greg Gordon
In a U.S. patent application, a little-known Maryland inventor claims a stunning solar energy breakthrough that promises to end the planet’s reliance on fossil fuels at a fraction of the current cost – a transformation that also could blunt global warming. Inventor Ronald Ace said that his flat-panel “Solar Traps,” which can be mounted on rooftops or used in electric power plants, will shatter decades-old scientific and technological barriers that have stymied efforts to make solar energy a cheap, clean and reliable alternative
The Global Land Grab: The New Enclosures
By Liz Alden Wily
Governments appear to find leasing out their citizens’ land too lucrative to themselves and aligned elites, and too advantageous to market-led routes of growth, to let justice or the benefits of the commons stand in their way
It Is No Measure Of Health To Be Well Adjusted To A Profoundly Sick Society
By Colin Todhunter
Corporate capitalism, consumerism, the new world order, a war on terror (or drugs or poverty, take your pick), neo-liberalism – call it what you will, but it's all based on the filthy lie that those in control have wider humanity's interests at heart. They don't. By any means possible – war, murder, torture or propaganda, they seek to convince people otherwise. What price human life? None whatsoever for such people
Mothers And Allies Challenge Wine Industrialist
By Shepherd Bliss
Half a dozen mothers from small town and rural Sebastopol in Northern California quickly rallied hundreds of people to their side to challenge Sonoma County’s Paul Hobbs Winery. He wants to convert a 40-acre apple orchard into a vineyard that would use pesticides; it borders five schools on Watertrough Road, including Apple Blossom and Orchard View. Together they have around 700 children, as well as many teachers, staff, neighbors and wildlife
The Pain Of Bangladesh: T-shirts Made With Blood And Tears
By Ramzy Baroud
The most painful part of this tragedy is that it was completely preventable, but perhaps neither the government, nor Walmart and many others find the issue urgent enough for decisive action to spare poor people a horrible death
Democracy Tsunami About To Hit Pakistan
By Gul Jammas Hussain
Pakistan’s powerful generals and feudal landlords have managed to keep the people poor and uneducated and the country underdeveloped for years, but it appears that they are finally going to be swept from power this week as the wave of the people’s desire for democracy has begun surging into a tsunami
Afzal Guru, Sarabjit Singh And Now Sanaullah: The Vicious Cycle Of “Justice”?
By Devika Mittal
Now that Afzal Guru, Sarabjit Singh and Sanaullah have died, has our "collective conscience" been satisfied? Has justice been served? Have we “responded” satisfactorily to the inhumanity caused? With them, the human has died
08 May ,2013
US Shrugs Off Syrian Opposition’s Chemical Weapons Use, Presses For War
By Thomas Gaist
US officials continued to press for war against Syria yesterday, dismissing United Nations investigator Carla del Ponte’s statement that Western-backed opposition forces, not the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, had used chemical weapons. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney summarily rejected del Ponte’s report without offering a shred of evidence to refute her statement
Bangladesh: Rana Plaza Death Toll Now 665, Testimony Of Survivor Morium Begum
By Global Labour Rights
“It is because of the ugly greed of the owners who forced us to work on April 24, forcing us into death at Rana Plaza. We demand justice as so many lives have been lost and so many others seriously injured and maimed. I wish it never happens again! How will I be able to bring up my kids? How will I buy food for them? How will they go to school?”
Koodankulam: A Court In The Supreme Contempt Of Its People
By P K Sundaram
The Supreme Court’s verdict on Koodankulam rests on three hugely contested premises: the judges’ belief in the necessity of the nuclear energy for India’s progress, their faith in the country’s nuclear establishment to perform its role, and the judges’ notion of the larger public interest and the apprehensions of small sections which should make way for the country’s progress. Not only have the judges given judicial sanctity to these contestable propositions, but have also completely overlooked the Koodankulam-specific brazen violations of the government’s own norms, raised by the petitioners
Sorry, We Haven't Got Answers To Our Questions
By The people of Idinthakarai
We have not been given clear cut answers for the questions we have been asking for the past few years. We are not stupid enough to believe the generalized statements that are being aired regarding safety and security of the Power Plant
Local Fights Against Austerity Are Growing Across The U.S.
By Mark Vorpahl
These local struggles and many more are a confirmation that austerity in the U.S. will be met with a fight. Though they are disconnected in terms of their organizing, they are a response to a national problem. This wave of local grassroots organizing shows the potential exists to galvanize a national movement against austerity
Preparing For Near-Term Extinction
By Carolyn Baker
Drumright’s thesis is simply that we must accept that “humanity has now crossed numerous irreversible climatic thresholds,” and “that by so doing, we have ushered in intractable near term extinction (NTE) of most of life within the next several decades.” In other words, NTE is a veritable certainty, and our existences on this planet as a human species is about to end. As I write this article, I am going to assume that NTE is valid and certain
US: No Entry For Mr. Modi
By Ram Puniyani
Mr. Narendra Modi, for whom some countries are warming up to relate to him in Europe and in the East; the latest report from US must be very disheartening. Despite a strong lobby for pressurizing to grant him Visa, the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), has called on the Obama administration to maintain a visa ban on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his role in the pogrom of 2002 that claimed over 2,000 lives and displaced over 150,000 people, many of whom are still in makeshift houses
07 May ,2013
UN Says US-Backed Opposition Not Syrian Regime,Used Poison Gas
By Alex Lantier
In a series of interviews, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said that sarin gas used in Syria was fired by the US-backed opposition, not the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Her account explodes the lies on which Washington and its European allies have based their campaign for war with Syria, according to which the US and its allies are preparing to attack Syria to protect its people from Assad’s chemical weapons
We Can Stop A Syria Quagmire
By Tim Gatto
We can stop this. We can demand that our nation stays out of the fray. We can write to our elected officials. We can demonstrate. We can resist. We can revolt. We have the right to control our government. If we don't want to become involved in a foreign war that doesn't interfere in our national interests then we have the right to stop that involvement
The UN And 250,000 Dead Somalis
By Thomas C. Mountain
The UN has announced that in 2010-2012, including the Great Horn of Africa Drought period, at least 250,000 Somalis starved to death. Most of those who died from starvation were internally displaced persons, displaced in the main by the military invasion and occupation of southern Somalia by the UN backed Ethiopian Army and then the AU “peacekeepers”, today some 25,000 strong
Imperial Gigantism And The Decline Of Planet Earth
By Tom Engelhardt
What if, in the twenty-first century, going up means declining? What if the unipolar moment turns out to be a planetary moment in which previously distinct imperial events -- the rise and fall of empires -- fuse into a single disastrous system? What if the story of our times is this: And then there was one planet, and it was going down
Environmental Ignorance Is Economic Bliss
By Philip Barnes
Could the collective of practicing economists, policy-makers, economics professors, and economics students all be suffering from something akin to the Dunning-Kruger Effect? As a community, are these individuals so unknowledgeable about the environmental consequences of pro-growth economic activity that they tend to systematically overestimate the discipline’s environmental performance?
By Their Friends Ye Shall Know Them: Zionists vs UNSW BDS
By Vacy Vlazna
In Australia there are 30 Max Brenner shops providing funds for the Strauss Group that filter towards the maintenance of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Another Brenner outlet is ‘coming soon’ to the campus of The University of New South Wales (UNSW), the site of the present Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) protest organised by Students for Justice in Palestine
A Ring-Side View Of The Chinese Incursion
By Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd)
Have Indian troops abandoned Indian territory?
Shahbagh No Imperialist Conspiracy, Mr Umari
By Subhash Gatade
Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari, President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, (Born in 1935), seems to be a learned man, at least that's what his biographical details tell us. Elected for the second time as Ameer (President) of the Jamaat he is known to have 'authored more than thirty books' and is 'considered an 'authority on human rights in general, and women and Islamic family system in particular'. Interestingly, despite his long innings in social-political life and exposure to the outside world his understanding of some crucial developments in this part of the subcontinent seems to be at variance from what can be said as a general consensus around the issue
Understanding Obama And Other People Who Kill
By Robert J. Burrowes
When Barack Obama orders the US military to attack people in another country, whether in a war or by using an illegal drone strike, he knows that people, including innocent men, women and children (called 'collateral damage'), will be killed. How can he do this? When Benjamin Netanyahu orders Israeli military attacks on unarmed Palestinians, he knows that innocent men, women and children will be killed. How can he do this?
Will The Biases About Terrorists Remain Permanent?
By Ram Puniyani
We have witnessed number of acts of terror in India, during last two decades. While those involved in the acts of terror have been coming from individuals of different religions, the net outcome of the actions of investigation agencies and police has been to arrest Muslim youth, to put charges against them and in most cases to release them after the charges are not proved on any ground
Corruption And Congress
By Abdul Majid Zargar
With every passing day, the name congress is becoming synonymous with word corruption . The latest one-coal gate scam comes close on the heels of Commonwealth Games scam, 2G scam, Helicopter scam. It appears that Corruption in India has acquired wings not wheels
05 May ,2013
Israeli Airstrikes Hit Damascus Military Site, City's Airport
By Russia Today
Strong blasts hit the outskirts of Syria’s capital early on Sunday, with reports saying that they were results of Israeli airstrikes on a military research center and Damascus Airport. Israel is thought to have carried out a similar attack days ago
Climate Crisis Will Bring Drought In Temperate Areas, Fnds NASA
By Countercurrents.org
Climate crisis may increase the risk of extreme rainfall in the tropics and drought in temperate zones, finds a new study by NASA
Toxic Waste Hurting Health Of People In India, Indonesia And The Philippines
By Countercurrents.org
Toxic waste sites with elevated levels of lead and chromium cause a high number of "healthy years of life lost" in individuals living near 373 sites located in India, the Philippines and Indonesia, according to a study by a Mount Sinai researcher published online in Environmental Health Perspectives
Boston Marathon, This Thing Called Terrorism, And The United States
By William Blum
What is it that makes young men, reasonably well educated, in good health and nice looking, with long lives ahead of them, use powerful explosives to murder complete strangers because of political beliefs? I’m speaking about American military personnel of course, on the ground, in the air, or directing drones from an office in Nevada. Do not the survivors of US attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and elsewhere, and their loved ones, ask such a question? The survivors and loved ones in Boston have their answer – America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Imperialism Is Now Murdering Stories
By Andre Vltchek
Nothing frightens fascism and its older brother imperialism more than real people and their honest stories. It is because ordinary stories of ordinary people are so genuine and so accurately reflect authentic human fears, desires and dreams that the ideologues and propagandists of the Western regime, which is supported by unnatural hyper-pseudo-reality, feel, for their survival, that it is essential to annihilate those stories, to wipe them from the surface of earth, even to erase them from our memories
The Universe Is An Undifferentiated Whole
By Robert Jensen
To describe a system as an undifferentiated whole is to mark its integrity as a whole, that must be understood on those terms. Once we see the world as a living system, our attempt to know it through analysis of the parts is, by definition, always an incomplete project. We can't really know the whole world; it exceeds our capacity. That's not an argument against science, but an argument for humility
While Media Looks For Encampments, Occupy Helps Build The Popular Resistance
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
Yesterday, a media outlet contacted us to be on a show about how Occupy had “ fizzled coming into this year's May 1. ” The media keeps looking for encampments or last year's protests and is missing how popular resistance is growing and demonstrating all over the country
Sarabjit, Sanaullah And We The Common People Across Borders
By Ravi Nitesh
At present approx 600 Indian prisoners are in Pakistani jails and 300 pakistani prisoners in Indian jails. The pity fact is that they are spread over so many prisons across both sides of borders and therefore a centralize system for their safety, speedy trials and special courts are unavailable to them. I wonder if govt of India and Pakistan can adopt any such activity in which all their prisoners can get a centralize location for proper tracking, safety and arrangements and special courts can be made them available for speedy justice. I wonder if governments can make wonders by treating a prisoner as a human being rather than making them escape goats
03 May ,2013
No Planet B: The Global CO2cide 400 ppm Milestone
By Andrew Glikson
On the 29 April, 2013, NOAA recorded a CO2 level of 399.50 ppm, signifying a return to atmosphere conditions of the Pliocene (5.2 – 2.6 million years ago). This followed a rise from 394.45 ppm to 397.34 ppm (March 2012 – 2013) at a rate of 2.89 ppm per year, unprecedented in the recorded geological history of the last 65 million years
Ignoring Iraqi Genocide, Mainstream Presstitutes Urge
US Syrian Invasion, Syrian Holocaust & Syrian Genocide
By Dr Gideon Polya
Mainstream presstitutes having succeeded in devastating Mali , Libya , Somalia , Palestine , Lebanon , Iraq , Afghanistan and NW Pakistan, are now urging the Western invasion and devastation of Syria , with the prospect of a Syrian Holocaust and a Syrian Genocide
The Onion Website Joins The U.S. Anti-Syria Club
By Shamus Cooke
The Onion is the most famous fake news website in the world, adored by millions who visit the site regularly for a cheap laugh as well as sharp political satire. But even fake news has certain responsibilities. Recently The Onion began publishing articles that framed the Syrian conflict according to the very biased views of U.S. politicians and mainstream media. Suddenly The Onion's objectivity and satire was reduced to regurgitating the war mongering that the website had previously mocked
Is Obama's Guantanamo Proclamation Any More Than A P.R. Stunt?
By Alan MacLeod
Despite his carefully chosen words about freedom and peace, President Obama has intensified the war in Afghanistan, violated Pakistan and Yemen's national sovereignty with drone attacks, and continued to interfere in Americans' privacy at home. The sad truth is Obama's major achievement in human rights is to make George Bush seem like a civil libertarian
The Truth Tellers Lament In A Time Of Darkness
By William A. Cook
You Debbie Menon and Alan Hart and all who devote their lives to peace and justice, who stand against the silent tides of humanity that want to recede in silence as their brothers are crucified by the sick Cains of this world, do what you do because you must, because you cannot let these maniacs go unrecognized, because your brothers and sisters need to know that some care
Is African Peace Keeping Mission In DRC Doomed To Fail?
By Nizar Visram
The M23 insurgents operating in the eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) wrote an open letter dated 11 April 2013 “to the people and the Parliament of Tanzania”. Though couched in polite language, the letter is not terribly friendly. It makes a grim reading
Ready For Rationing? Why We Should Put The Brakes On
Consumption If We Want To Survive
Robert Jensen Interviews Stan Cox
Robert Jensen talks with Stan Cox talks about his new book "Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing."
Evicting The Gandhians
Justin Podur Interviews Himanshu Kumar
Himanshu Kumar is a Gandhian activist who, together with his wife, ran the Vanvasi Chetana Ashram in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh for 22 years. He learned the local adivasi language (Gondi) and worked through the Ashram to help adivasis access their rights under the law. Starting in 2005, during the murderous Salwa Judum campaigns of vigilante groups against the adivasis of Bastar in Chhattisgarh, Himanshu worked to try to get villagers back to their homes, get people falsely accused out of jail, and win justice for the victims of police and vigilante crimes. His Ashram was eventually bulldozed and he was forced to move to Delhi, from where he continues to try to follow up with legal cases on the state's treatment of the adivasis
The Struggle For Justice In Manipur
By Graham Peebles
Manipur, like its neighbouring States in the Northeast is awash with government paramilitary, for over five decades it’s people have been petitioning and fighting for self-determination. They bear witness to the plague of state criminality, violent injustice and corruption surging through the country. Widespread rape, torture, false imprisonment and extra judicial killings, are all in use as methods of government oppression and control that are poisoning life in the region
Don’t You Have A Sharmila Within You?
By Ravi Nitesh
It is a time to identifying our potential in our hearts and souls that make ourselves a follower of truth. It is a time to think about future generations and to contribute in building an atmosphere of fearless minds. Its not only fight of Manipur or other NE states or J&K, its not only fight of those who lost their persons in resulted this rule, instead it is a demand by the persons who believe in humanity and rights and justice for all. We all are living Sharmila in our heart because we are determined to support the Repeal AFSPA cause and moreover to the all and any cause that can enrich humanity and that can remove ill effects of present rules imposed by society or government at any place
A Clear And Present Danger At Koodankulam:
Shoddy Parts, Shabby Leaders, And Shaky Indian Lives!
By PMANE
The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) accuses that the corrupt Congress Party and government in India, the Indian nuclear establishment and the Russian nuclear establishment consider Indian lives base and valueless and prepare to put our lives in danger for their own profits, commissions, power and prominence
Fair Elections Versus Final Solution
By Abdul Majid Zargar
Mufti Sahib- what the people of Kashmir aspire for is a final resolution of the Kashmir dispute. They cannot commit their next generation to the mayhem & blood bath witnessed since decades. Please urge the PM to fulfill this aspiration than crave for free & fair elections and if you are successful- you will be remembered as a visionary statesman till eternity rather than be in the hot seat for few years
02 May ,2013
US East Coast Sea Surface Temperatures In 2012
Highest In 150 Years
By Countercurrents.org
The 2012 brought the warmest recorded sea surface temperatures in 150 years for the US east coast between Cape Hatteras, N.C. and the Gulf of Maine
The Speech Obama Should Give On Keystone XL
By Bill Henderson
Bill Henderson writes a speech for Obama
The Downwinders : Fracking Ourselves To Death In Pennsylvania
By Ellen Cantarow
Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging industry pushes the next wonder technology -- in this case, high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses, memory loss, and more. “In my opinion,” says Yuri Gorby of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, “what we see unfolding is a serious health crisis, one that is just beginning.”
Boston, Brazil And Islam: Irrational Rhetoric, Illegal Wars
By Ramzy Baroud
The official purpose of Hagel’s recent visit to Israel was to finalize US arms sales to Israel and other countries which total about $10 billion. Knowing how such weapons have been used in the past, one can hardly appreciate the ‘sarcasm’ in Eric Rush’s tweet of wanting to ‘kill them all.’ Per the history of US foreign policy, violent words often translate into violent action and here lies the real danger of the supposedly crazy bunch who equate Islam to Brazil and wish to incarcerate women for wearing scarves
From Lidice To Deir Yassin: The Unbearable Shame Of Forgetting
By Vacy Vlazna
The villages, Lidice in former Czechoslovakia and Deir Yassin in Palestine are harrowing examples of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment perpetrated on the innocent by Nazis and Israelis respectively. Significantly, on moral grounds, they serve to demonstrate that profound human lessons of WWII went tragically unheeded
Postcard From The End Of America : San Jose
By Linh Dinh
Each of my visit to San Jose is a kind of homecoming, for my father, brother and, uh, absolutely composed, considerate and non-screaming stepmother are still here, and have lived here for decades. Though I have no sentimental attachment to this place, I also don't hate it. Personal crap can be tedious, and I'm not trying to bore you, only clarifying that I have my own rather lengthy Story Road in San Jose
Islamo-Fascists In Bangladesh – Whose Side Are You On?
By Javed Anand
Whose side are you on? The question is addressed in particular to Indian Muslim supporters of the violence-promoting Jamat-Shibir outfits in Bangladesh as much as to the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, both of whom seem to have granted to local Muslims the right to hold the state to ransom as often as they please
An Inner Journey: Some Observations
By Rev’d Barnabas J Alexander
Observations of a UK based Methodist Minister on his visit to South India
01 May ,2013
US Pledges To Arm Syrian Opposition
By Alex Lantier
Senior Obama administration officials announced yesterday that the United States will directly arm the Islamist opposition fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This came as another terror bombing hit the Syrian capital, Damascus, amid a wave of bombings carried out by the US-backed opposition
Bangladeshi Government Ends Rescue Operations In Collapsed Building
By Sarath Kumara
On Monday, the Awami League-led government in Bangladesh has wound up rescue operations at the site of last week’s building collapse that killed at least 380 people and left many others trapped in the rubble. Rescue workers, who had previously been carefully picking through the wreckage to find survivors, have begun using heavy equipment, including hydraulic cranes, heightening the risk of crushing anyone who remains alive
On This May Day In Bangladesh: Deaths Teach, Deaths Challenge
By Farooque Chowdhury
With red flags held high and grief stricken hearts thousands of workers in Bangladesh cities and towns and industrial areas march today, May Day. Only days ago they came across deaths of hundreds of fellow garments workers in Savar, a Dhaka suburb. Their hearts weep. They recollect the fallen workers, known to many of them
Walmart And Terrrorism Against Workers
By Marc Norton
When terrorist bombers killed three people in Boston on April 15, the FBI moved heaven and earth to find and apprehend those responsible. When Walmart's suppliers in Bangladesh killed over 380 people, at last count, in one of their garment factory death traps on April 24, the FBI sat on their hands, despite the fact that those responsible – Walmart's Board of Directors – are well known and could be easily apprehended
Shameful Complicity In The Fatal Factories Of Bangladesh
By David Bacon
Seven hundred workers have died in factory fires in Bangladesh since 2005, the most recent being the 112 who burned or jumped to their deaths at the Tazreen factory on November 24. Now hundreds more bodies are being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza building, in an industrial district 18 miles from Dhaka
Google’s Spymasters Are Now Worried About Your Secrets
By Robert Scheer
Schmidt and Cohen warn, “The most important data they will collect in the future is biometric information, which can be used to identify individuals through their unique physical and biological attributes. Fingerprints, photographs and DNA testing are all familiar biometric data types today. ... With cloud computing, it takes just seconds to compare millions of faces. ... By indexing our biometric signatures, some governments will try to track our every move and word, both physically and digitally."
Boston Bombings: Detonator To Mobilize The Entire US Security Apparatus
By Prof. James Petras
The ‘Boston Bombings’ have larger political and economic consequences; they set the stage for a new round of wars abroad and regressive (and repressive) changes at home
Protect The Rights Of The Indigenous People Of India
By Jharkhand Human Rights Movement
An open letter to the President of India
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